Safe baby sleep habits focus of proposed law

Corti Cooper holds her swaddled, 3-month-old son Micah at her Stratford, Conn. home Thursday, May 7, 2015. The state Senate passed a law that would require pediatricians to give warnings about sudden infant death syndrome and safe-sleep practices. less

Corti Cooper holds her swaddled, 3-month-old son Micah at her Stratford, Conn. home Thursday, May 7, 2015. The state Senate passed a law that would require pediatricians to give warnings about sudden infant ... more

Corti Cooper holds her swaddled, 3-month-old son Micah at her Stratford, Conn. home Thursday, May 7, 2015. The state Senate passed a law that would require pediatricians to give warnings about sudden infant death syndrome and safe-sleep practices. less

Corti Cooper holds her swaddled, 3-month-old son Micah at her Stratford, Conn. home Thursday, May 7, 2015. The state Senate passed a law that would require pediatricians to give warnings about sudden infant ... more

Corti Cooper and her husband Carlos Esteves Cooper didn't get owners' manuals after the births of their two sons. It was strictly on-the-job training.

Their newest, 3-month-old Micah Esteves Cooper, is at the age when sudden infant death syndrome could occur. In 2013, 18 Connecticut children, average age 3 months, died from unsafe sleep methods.

That's why state lawmakers want to make sure hospitals give parents and guardians of newborns the latest information on preventing crib death. It's not your grandparents' or parents' baby care.

No blankets and crib bumpers. No pillows, loose bedding or stuffed toys. No sharing beds or sofas with prone parents. Use a firm sleep surface. For warmth, newborns should be swaddled and put on their backs for naps and bedtime.

"It's scary at first," said Corti Cooper, 36, a web designer who lives in Stratford. "They're very small. They don't eat a lot and Micah sleeps too long. Now it's not that scary. It's something that you do. You want to make sure they're OK."

New parents' anxiety could be eased with a law that unanimously passed the state Senate last week would require hospitals to give parents and guardians to detailed information from the American Academy of Pediatrics on safe-sleep practices.

Some hospitals are already providing this kind of information.

Maryalice Cullen, the director of women's and children's patient care services at Danbury Hospital, said new parents receive an array of information about safe sleep practices from the hospital. Cullen said staff demonstrate the proper way to put babies back to sleep and, when discharged, the doctor goes over ways to prevent sudden infant death syndrome. The new parents are also given a binder of information, which includes a section on safe sleeping practices.

"Having the law isn't going to necessitate us doing anything differently," Cullen said. "We always are trying to get our practices up to date to as new standards come out."

If passed by the House and signed into law, Connecticut would join a handful of other states to expand on the "Back to Sleep" effort of 1992, when parents were first told to put newborns on their backs.

"Connecticut infants are more likely to die from unsafe sleeping conditions than from any other source of accidental injury, including car accidents, choking, drowning and falls, or from child abuse," said Senate President Pro Tempore Martin M. Looney, D-New Haven.

During a February public hearing, the Connecticut Hospital Association testified that the bill wasn't necessary because hospitals like Danbury already provide safe-sleep information for parents of newborns. But Looney said that it's important to have all hospitals adopt the same discharge procedures.

State Child Advocate Sarah Egan, co-chairman of the Child Fatality Review Panel, said every month the group sees the pictures of deceased babies. The mother of a kindergarten student, Egan said that every year the state loses the equivalent of a future class full of children for reasons that are preventable.

"I think about what the state medical examiner said in our closed-door, windowless meeting," Egan said last week. "He said 'That's the love of somebody's life.' And that's a loss that can never be repaired."

Egan said the new law is a means to show support to the parents of newborns. "We can save lives," she said. "It's a big step forward for our infants and our families."

Dr. James R. Gill, the state's Chief Medical Examiner, also supports the bill and noted in recent testimony to the General Assembly that a growing number of fatalities around the country have been attributed to unsafe sleep practices.

Dr. Kristen Bechtel, associate professor of pediatric emergency medicine at the Yale University School of Medicine, said it is important to provide consistent information. "For all intents and purposes, unsafe sleep conditions are the leading cause of preventable death in healthy infants in this state," said Bechtel, who is the co-chairman of the Child Fatality Review Panel.

She quoted recent research at the Yale Medical School that found the more often parents and caregivers receive safe-sleep facts, the more likely they are to use the measures.

"This bill is an important first step in trying to reduce this trend in the state of Connecticut," Bechtel said.

"This is a topic that's very close to me," he said. "These are all children who should not have died at three months. This is a program that has a cost of pennies that's going to preserve lives in the state every year. I would hope that everyone would be behind the bill; the people who are instructed to carry out what's in the bill in terms of the education for the parents does their part, so that we're not down at our monthly meeting looking at babies who should be alive but in fact are undergoing an autopsy."

Cooper, the Stratford mom whose company is called Dot Think Design, said a friend's grandson died at six months. While a baby sleeping in the adults' bed is not dangerous in and of itself, a sleep-deprived father is more likely to roll over it.

"You have to be aware," she said. "Never sleep with baby on the couch. More information is better because if there were more information out there, there'd be fewer deaths."